Confection-coating machine



Dec: 21 1926. 115111576 A. B'AusMAN CQNFECTION COATING MACHINE Filed Jan. 192s 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 2 A TTORNEYS.

A. L. BAUSMAN CONFECTION COATING MACHINE Dec. 21 1926,

4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Jan. 29 1925 INVENTOR.

BY rM ATTORNEYS.

Dec. 21 1926.

A. L. BAUSMAN CONFEC'IION COATING MACHINE Filed'Jan. 29, 1925 4 ShetsSheet s' INVENTOR. BY 2 IQ ATTORNEYS.

A. QBAUSMAN CONFECTION COATING MACHINE 7 Filed Jan. 29, 1925 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 INVEgTOR.

BY ATTORNE ill? Patented Dec. 21, 1926.

UNITED srares 1,611,576 PATENT orrice.

ALONZO LINTON BAUSMAN, OF SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTii, ASSIGNOPJ TO NA- TIONAL EQUIEMENT COMPANY, OF SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORA- TION OF MASSACHUSETTS.

GOIIFECTIO N -CGATING MACHINE.

Application filcdfianuary This invention relates to improvements in confection coating machines of the general type wherein the confections, are carried on a pervious conveyer and coated by passing through a downwardly dii'ected stream of coating material.

The invention is concerned with improve ments which are designed to result in an increase of the capacity of the machine without a corresponding increase in the floor space occupied thereby. Heretofore, when a coating machine, having greater capacity than the standard machine, was desired, the increased apacity has been provided for in the obvious way by widening the machine and providing wider confection carrying belts. This practice has the disadvantage of increasing the floor space occupied by the machine in direct proportion to the increase in capacity. Moreover, there are difiiculties attending this practice and definite limitations to the degree to which the confectio carrying belts can be widened.

The usual type of coating machine includes three conveyers arranged in eries with the delivery end of one in exceedingly close relation to the receiving end of the succeeding conveyer of the series, so that confections will readily and smoothly pass from one conveyer to the next without any special transfer mechanism. On this account the intermediate conveyer of the series, which is the pervious or wire mesh conveyer, is supported at the ends of its confection carrying stretch by two rolls of exceedingly small diameter so that the conveyer will turn very sharp corners. larger than a large wire and are positively driven, cannot be increased indefinitely in length. As they are lengthened the tendency to whip during rotation is increased and other diificultiesare encountered, with the result that a limit has been reached, for all practical. purpo es, when the length of the standard roll is doubled. Accordingly any further increase in the capacity of the machine, ctfected by increasing the width of the confection carrying belts. is impractical. 'lheretore, this method of increasing the capacity of the machine not only has its definite limits but is disadvantageous in any event because it results in a proportional increase in occupied floor space.

According to my invention, I provide :1

These rolls, which are little 29, 1925. Serial no. 5,639.

confection coating machine having a plurality of pervious confection-carrying belts arranged one above the other and the confections on each belt are coated in the normal way, as by adoWnward stream of coating delivered from a flow pan thereabove. lVith -the plurality of belts and flow pans, I provide a single supply tank and conditioning means therefor together with a single elevating means by which coating is raised to and delivered into the uppermost flow pan. The flow pan or pans, arranged at lower levels, are supplied by collecting the excess coating material passing through the pervious conveyer thereabove and the excess coating passing through the lowermost pervious conveyer is returned to the supply tank.

The thick stream ofcoating, when it encounters the wiresof the wire mesh pervious conveyer, is broken up and the result is that there isl'a tendency for air to become entrapped in. the coating forming air bubbles and, as a desirable adjunctive feature of the invention, I provide means for freeing that coating which passes through a per-vious conveyer, from air bubbles before such coating is applied to confections on the pervious conveyer therebelow.

Other features of the invention will appear in the following description and in the illustrative embodiment of the'invention, in the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. 1 is an elevational View partly in ec-- tion showing the more essential features of a coating machine embodying the invention:

Fig. 2 is a small scale exterior elevational view of the complete apparatus, showing the arrangement of the feed and delivery belts for the machine;

.Fig. 3is a fragmentary sectional elevaa tional View taken similarly to Fig. land showing a modification in detail; and

Figs. 4 and 5 are front and rear elevational views of the-machine illustrative of the driving connections therefor. 1

Referring to thesedrawings and particularly to Fig. 1; I have shown, by way of illustrative example and in more or less con ventional fornna well known type of confection coatingmachine. It includes a casing A, in the lower part of which is a supply tank 10 forthe coating material, such as chocolate "for. example. Associated with Hill tank are suitable coating conditioning means, such as the heating jacket 11 and the rotatable stirrers 12. Chocolate is taken from an outlet 13 (Fig. 4) at the base of tank 10 and elevated by a gear pump, indicated at 1 1, through a conduit 15, preferably jacketed as indicated. The supply tank, the coating conditioning means and the coating elevating means are, or may be, of the general type more fully disclosed in my U. Letters Patent No. 1,323,948, dated December 2, 1919, to which reference is also made for a disclosure of one suitable means for driving the stirrers 12.

Except for the elements just described, the machine is of the general nature disclosed in U. S. Letters Patent No. 735,890,

granted August 11, 1903, on an invention of E. P. F. Magniez, differing in detail but not in the general construction and mode of operation. Above tank 10 is a pervious conveyer 16 or so called wire belt, the upper stretch of which serves to carry the confec lions and extends horizontally through the casing A. At the ends of such stretch are very small rolls 17, which enable the conveyer to turn very sharp corners so that the delivery end of a feed belt 18 (Fig. 2) may be brought into very closerelation therewith, whereby the confections to be coated will pass readily from the feed belt to the wire belt without special transferring means. The described arrangement similarly serves to allow the receiving end of a. delivery belt 19 to be positioned close to the delivery end of the wire belt so that the coated confections will readily pass from the former to the latter. The conveyor is provided with other supporting rolls 20, a driving roll 21 and two bottoming rolls 22.

These rolls are interconnected by the gear train 23 shown in Fig. 4 and driven by bevel gearing 24 from a vertical shaft 25 which is connected by bevel gearing 26 to a horizontal shaft 27 mounted at the upper end of casing A. Shaft 27 carries a cone pulley 28 which is belted to a similar pulley 29 on a shaft 30 which is driven by the pulley 31 shown in Fig. 5. The belt may be shifted on the pulleys by the usual shifter mechanism, indicated in part at 32. This arrangement permits the speed of the wire belt to be varied. Above and below this speed changing device are similar devices, the upper one serving to control the speed of afan. to be described, and the lower one to control the speed of the feed and delivery belts 18 and 19, respectively. The speed changing device for the fan is driven from the pulley (Fig. 4;) on its drive shaft 34 and its driven shaft carries a pulley 35,, which by the belts S6, 37 and 38 and suitable pulleys, drives the fan shaft 39. The lower speed changing device has its drive shaft 10 connected by gearing 11 (Fig. 5) to the drive shaft 30 thereabove and its driven shaft 42 is connected by bevel gearing to a vertical shaft 43 which by bevel gearing drives a short horizontal shaft 44;. The latter is geared to a shaft 45, at opposite ends of which are worms as and worm gears t? for driving the drive rolls 48 and 49 of the feed and delivery belts 1S and 19 respectively. The described driving mechanism is the usual one and further description of it is thought unnecessary to an understanding of the invention. it is shown conventionally and described briefly merely to indicate how one or more similar sets of convcyers, to be later described, may be driven. The drive shaft 25 may, as shown in Fig. 4-, 'vtend downwardly and connect by bevel iring with the drive shaft 50 of pump lei.

Referring to Fig. 1, above the wire belt 16 is the'usual flow pan 51, having one or more slots 52 through which coating. sup plied to the flow pan in a manner to be describ'cd, may flow and coat the tops and sides of confections carried on belt 16. The rolls underlie the slots a pick up some of the excess coating pas through belt 16 and apply it to the bottoms of the confections in the known manner. The confections, thus coated, are carried by belt 16 in under the outlet of a fan 53, whereby some of the applied coating is removed, after which any wrinkles in the coatings are removed by the usual belt tapping device, in dicated conventionally at The corn pletely coated confections then pass over an extension 55 of easing A and finally to the delivery belt 19, whereby they are carried to any suitable cooling means, of which the cold room B (Fig. 2) is one representative example.

Mounted in casing A above the elements described is a duplicate set of elements exactly similar to those described and designat-ed by the same reference nun'ierals primed. The wire belt 16 has its gear train 23 connected by bevel gearing 56 to the described shaft 25. The feed and delivery belts 18 and 19 are driven in a manner similar to that described and similarly connected to the drive shaft 1-3. The drive shaft 39 is driven from the'belt 37. The feed belt 18 is made shorter than the feed belt 18 and the delivery belt 19 is extended beyond the corresponding and underlying belt, as shown in Fig. 2, so that operators. standing on platforms 57 and 58, may feed and remove confections from bolts 18 and 19, respec'tively, without interfering with the operators who are tending the bolts 18 and 19. The extension 55 may also be extended beyond extension to enable an operator to hand decorate confections on belt 16 without interfering with an operator doing corresponding work on belt 16.

The conduit 15, through which the chocolfitl late is elevated, extends upwardly above the level of flow pan 51 and inwardly into casing A, terminating with a downturned end 59 (Fig. 1), which overlies the flow pan 51, whereby the latter is supplied with chocolate. The excess coating passing through wire belt 16 is suitably collected and passed into the underlying flow pan 51 and the excess coating passing through Wire belt 16 passes into tank 10. It is obvious that the arrangement described may be supplemented by other similar sets of elements, so that more than two coating operations may be simultaneously carried on without using more than the one source of supply, the one coating conditioning means and the one coating elevating means. In this way the capacity of the machine may be increased without increasing the floor space occupied thereby and without increasin the cost in the same proportion as the capacity is increased because a single supply tank and a single conditioning and elevating means is made to serve a plurality of coating devices.

The excess coating passing through the wire belt 16 may be collected by an underlying pan and delivered directly into the flow pan 51 as shown inFig. 3. Such a collecting pan is shown by the two t'ansverse plates and 61. The thick stream of coating issuing from flow pan 52 18 broken up as it strikes the meshed wires of the wire belt 16, and in this process, picks up more or less air with the result that air becomes pocketed in the chocolate in the form of bubles. It is desirable to remove these bubbles before the chocolate is again used for coating and, accordingly, it is another feature of the invention to provide some suitable means to act on the chocolate passing through wire belt 16 and free it from air bubbles before it is used again for coating. Such means may, for example, consist simply of an arrangement of the plates and 6], so that the chocolate is caused to spread out into a sheet, which is sufiiciently thin to al low the air bubbles to break. The heavy bulk of coating, delivered through belt 16, strikes the steeply inclined plate 60, down which it passes fairly rapidly and becomes spread out to some extent. This part of the coating, and the lesser part received on the less steeply inclined portions of plate 61, are obliged to pass through a narrow slot 62, between the plates, so that the rate of flow is controlled. The stream issuing through this slot strikes on the very steeply inclined lower extension 63, projecting below plate 60, whereby it is further spread out, and into such a thin stream that the bubbles break before the chocolate passes into flow pan 51.

This same general arrangement of plates 60 and 61 is shown in Fig. 1 coupled with an auxiliary pan 64 into which the extension 63 depends. and terminates closely adjacent the bottom of the pan. The extension ($3 111 th s case, forms a battle and partitions the pan 6 except for a narrow slot 65. The

chocolate is received in the right hand side of pan (i i and passes through slot 65 to the left hand side, where it flows over a weir examples of many various ways of effecting the desired result.

The operation of the machine will suiticiently appear from the foregoing description. 1

it will be seen that my invention provides for an increase in capacity of a coating machine without an increase in occupied floor space and without a directly proportionate increase in manufacturing cost. The one supply tank, with its single conditioning and elevating means for the coating, serves for a plurality of coating operations. Also it is insured that the Work performed at the various points results in like quality since all of the coating is drawn from common supply and has similar characteristics and is similarly conditioned.

The invention has been disclosed herein for illustrative purposes but the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description.

lVhat I claim is:

1. In a confection coating machine, a plurality of pervious confection conveyers mounted one above the other, and means for circulating coating material up and down in a single endless path the downward portion of which is intercepted by said conveyers, whereby the excess coating passing through one conveyor is utilized forcoating con ections on the com yer therebelow.

2 In a confection coa' ng machine, a plurality of pervious confection conveyers mounted one above the other, means for circulatingcoating material up and down in a single endless path the downward portion of which is intercepted b said conveyers, whereby the excess coating passing through one conveyor is utilized for coating confections on the conveyor therebelow, and means acting on the coating passing through one conveyer to free it from air bubbles before it is applied to the confections on the con veyer therebelow.

3. In a confection coating machine, a pervious conveye'r to carry the confections to be coated, means for coating the confections on said conveyor, a supply tank for the coating, means to deliver coating therefrom to said coating means, a second confection conveyor,

lll5

a second coating means associated therewith, and means for collecting the excess coating which passes through the first named conveyer and delivering it to said second coating means.

4. In a confection coating machine, a pervious conveyer to carry the confections to be coated, means for coating the confections on said conveyer, a supply tank for the coating, means to deliver coating therefrom to said coating means, a second confection conveyer, a second coating means associated therewith, means for collecting the excess coating which passes through the first named conveyer and delivering it to said second coating means, and means associated with the last named means tending to free the coating from air bubbles before it is delivered to said second coating means.

5. In a confection coating machine, a plu rahty of pervious confection supports mounted one above the other, and means for circulating coating material up and down in a single endless path the downward portion of which is intercepted by said supports, whereby the coating draining through one support is utilized for coating confections on the support therebelow.

('3. In a confection coating machine, a plurality of pervions confection supports mounted one above the other, means for cir culating coating material up and down in a single endless path the downward portion of which is intercepted by said supports, wl'iereby the coating draining through one support is utilized for coating confections on the support therebelow, and means acting on the coating draining through one support to free it from air bubbles before it is applied to the confections on the support therebelow.

T. In a confection coating machine, a supply tank for coating material, a pervious confection conveyer travelling thereabove, a flow pan above said conveyer to deliver a stream of coating upon confections carried by said conveyer, the excess coating passing through the latter draining into said tank, a second pervious conveyer mounted to travel above the first named conveyer and its flow pan, a second flow pan mounted above the second conveyer to deliver a stream of coating upon confections carried thereby, means for delivering coating from said tank to the second flow pan, and means for collecting the coating draining through the second conveyer and delivering it into said second shower pan.

8. In a confection coating machine, a supply tank for coating material, a pervious confection conveyer travelling thereabove, a flow pan above said conveyer to deliver a stream of coating upon confections carried by said conveyor, the excess coating passing through the latter draining into said tank, a second pervious conveyer mounted to travel above the first named conveyer and its flow pan, a second flow pan mounted above the second conveyer to deliver a stream of coating upon confections carried thereby, means for delivering coating from said tank to the second flow pan, means for collecting the coating draining through the second conveyer and delivering it into said second shower pan, and means associated with the last named means and acting on the collected coating with a tendency to free the coating from air bubbles before it is again used for coating.

9. In a confection coating machine, a pervious confection conveyer, means to coat confections on said conveyer, two coating collecting members underlying the latter and arranged in downwardly converging relation leaving a relatively narrow passage thcrebetween, one of said members extending downwardly below the other with a steeply pitched portion, and a pervious conveyer underlying said plates and arranged to carry confections to be coated by the collected coating material delivered from said extension.

10. In a confection coating machine, a pervious confection conveyer, means to coat confections on said conveyer, a pan mounted below said conveyor and arranged to receive the coating passing therethrougli, a barrier partitioning said pan except for a relatively small passage near the base thereof, means for delivering the coating into the pan on one side of said barrier, and means for taking coating from the upper part of the pan 011 the other side of the barrier and delivering it for another coating operation, and a second pervious conveyer underlying said pan and adapted to carry confections on which the last named coating operation is to be performed.

In testimony whereof I have affixed my signature.

ALONZO LINTON BAUSMAN. 

